Basics in Black and White

I\’m back with a few more basics for my RTW fast! As you probably already know I love Grana for their great basics–silk camis, jeans, tees–and they are basically the one place I\’ve missed so far this year as I fast. One of my favorite items from them is a cute blush pink tee, which I wore as a pajama top on the blog here and with a simple skirt here. I love the slightly boxy yet still flattering shape and the cuffed sleeves. When the Jeanne pattern came out, I was immediate tempted to buy it, since it looked so similar… but I thought I\’d start out by simply tracing my Grana tee and see how it went before I spent the $10.

So Sew English offered to send some knits my way and jumpstarted this project. I think they are more well known for their prints but I really needed a few basic tees rather than pretty florals, so I went with a plain black and plain white in two different substrates so that I could show you all the difference the fabric makes in sewing the same pattern (sort of a theme here I guess).

The first is their viscose from bamboo knit in black:

This is a super luxe-feeling, drapey, soft knit that makes a pretty slinky teeshirt. This is definitely a little sexy in black!

The second is their micro viscose cotton spandex which is (I think) basically the \”micromodal\” that MeUndies etc. are made of.

It is also very soft and cosy, and has nice stretch and recovery due to the spandex, but is a little bit less drapey and more solid. I think you can see in the comparison photos that this one is more a the classic tee shirt weight, and in white it is, I think, the ultimate tee shirt fabric. I\’ll definitely be returning to get more of this particular fabric in different colors.

As far as my \”pattern\” goes, the fit on this tee could be better, I think. I\’m not worried about it all that much–I\’ll be wearing the black one tomorrow, because I really like them–but there\’s certainly room for improvement! The cuffed sleeves are perfect and although I\’m still not super confident sewing with knits, I do think I\’m getting better! The more I practice the better I will get, just like anything–and I have a little of each of these fabrics left over, so I see more practice in my future 🙂

xoxo,